Discussion
There’s a strange contradiction at the heart of being human.
We’re mammals; biologically designed to live among other humans, and especially humans we trust and love.
Our nervous systems regulate one another’s. We become calmer in the presence of people we feel safe with. Babies need to be held and loved, or they “fail to thrive” (aka, ‘die’). 💔
And yet...
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Hierarchies have become central to our way of life.
The conditioning starts very early. We’re already rich or poor, Black or white, male or female. Children are put into environments where they’re compared, graded, ranked and separated according to performance. One child being “ahead” means another must be “behind”. One gets the prize; twenty-nine don’t. 🏆
We talk endlessly about our young ones needing to learn how to socialise, while placing them inside extraordinarily artificial (and hierarchical) social environments where they have almost no control over who they’re with, where they go, what they do, when they can leave… or what sort of contact they have with one another.
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And parenting is saturated with similar stuff. Don’t pick them up too much, don’t spoil them, don’t let them become dependent. Don’t comfort them if they’re scared at night. Let them cry. Make them “independent”…
As though dependence is some kind of developmental failure, rather than a basic condition of being human.
And then we wonder why so many of us don’t feel safe. Um. 🤔
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We humans obviously need one another!
And yet we’re organised in ways that make us competitors. We’re forced into the position of envying those above us, competing with those on our level, and kicking down on those below us (they’re the scapegoats – and our boot can land with a satisfying thud, since we can reach them).
The underlying message is always the same, whether in education, work, family, war or love: your loss is my gain – and vice versa. 🎲
The message we’re taught is: there’s only a limited supply of everything. Not just money or time, but love and attention too. Connection.
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@alfiekohn (refs at the end of the thread)
#Competition #Capitalism
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We’ve created a society in which other people are our worst source of danger.
Not necessarily physical danger, although obviously sometimes that too!
It can be in the form of judgement, rejection, and exclusion. Ah, we have so many forms of punishment for the disobedient and the unfortunate. Losing your job, status, your home. Losing love and connection. Being replaced, or being thought less of. It’s all so very… conditional. This human condition.
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